Springfield board questions Keystones

By SUSAN L. SERBIN

Thursday, December 13, 2012

SPRINGFIELD -- School board members stopped short of saying the Keystone Exams were a waste of valuable instruction time. But several directors made clear there were many issues as to why they were less than pleased with the newly mandated state testing program that will have an impact on students and the district as a whole.

The board and public will be kept informed about the tests through regular "Keystone Corner" reports. The December edition was an overview of testing for the remainder of the 2012-13 school year.

District personnel had a PowerPoint presentation that generally outlined the testing program given in schools throughout the state. Keystone Exams are end-of-course assessments administered online three times a year and are designed to evaluate proficiency of academic content in Algebra I, biology and literature. They will replace the 2013 11th-grade Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests. Algebra and literature results will count toward the district's 2013 Adequate Yearly Progress. Springfield has started the testing, will have a second session in January and the final "wave" in May.

The tests will not be a graduation requirement for current high school students. However, this year's eighth-grade class will be the first required to demonstrate proficiency on all three areas of the Keystone Exams to graduate as the Class of 2017. At that point, students who reach proficiency will graduate with no interruption to their course of study.

If proficiency is not reached, the options are: retesting; taking a remedial class and then a retest; or taking a project-based course in lieu of passing the test. The last two of those three options may require students to forfeit an elective class in the upper grades.

Board members questioned and critiqued the "unknowns" that accompany the Keystones. Director of Teaching and Learning Dr. Anthony Barber said as of yet, there was no information on how the Keystones would be normed or how reporting would be done. Director Doug Carney said the tests would be of lesser or no value if results could not assess the district's cohorts (students continuously served in the schools).

Director Don Cadge objected that the state was making Keystone Exams a graduation requirement, taking decisions out of the realm of local districts.

"The state mandating a one-size-fits-all test is never a solution," Cadge said.

President Keith Black commented that charter and cyber school students did not have Keystone Exam requirements.

Barber ended the report on a positive note. The district had an unannounced and comprehensive "audit" by the Pennsylvania Department of Education on the exam administration. Barber said Springfield was in the 5 percent of schools giving the test electronically, able to do so with its technology infrastructure. The district's "finest practices" was among comments heard from examiners.